Some messages need to be seen by your entire company, others need to happen at the team level, and not every team conversation needs to involve your entire team. I think a few features are universally necessary, however, and kept them in mind while I was reviewing apps. I've been reviewing and writing about software since 2009, working remotely the entire time, so I'm extremely familiar with the ins and outs of team communication software.Ĭommunication is tied to culture, and every company is different-this is why there are so many work chat apps on the market. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site-we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. Staying connected to coworkers at your faraway office is simple-if you pick the right apps.All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Working from home doesn’t have to mean working alone. If Dropbox emulates both features-not just the automatic screenshot sharing, but the ability to drag files to share onto its menu-bar icon-I might abandon the other two apps just to cut down on how much is in my menu bar. I use those services many times every workday.ĭropbox has released a beta version of its own app that does this sort of instant sharing for screenshots you take, and of course Dropbox is an important part of any collaborative, remote workflow too. It’s quick and painless, and makes it very easy to share files without fuss. Both Orangutango’s $8ĬloudApp offer services that automatically upload screenshots you snap, or any files you drag onto their menu-bar icons, and put the URL to share those uploads right onto your clipboard for pasting. It’s considerably harder from 3,000 miles away-unless you rely on one of these quick sharing services. “Hey, look at this.” That’s easy to say in an office, when you can call your colleague over to your desk. The shots I snap are automatically uploaded. It’s kind of the next best thing to being there-and it works wherever I have a laptop and an Internet connection.ĬloudApp and Swing It’s easy to share screenshots with CloudApp. The ability to hold phone calls with my coworkers, without needing to change what I’m doing, to me feels rather akin to calling out to a colleague in the next cubicle. On those occasions when I need to make phone calls with my colleagues around the country, I needn’t stop what I’m doing to grab hold of phone. And it’s more convenient than any other hands-free phone approach. I literally speak right in front of my Mac, and the built-in microphone is good enough for a typical phone conversation. In the Gmail browser window, you can place and receive phone calls using your Google Voice number. I place and receive my work phone calls through the site-specific browser I maintain for Gmail. My favorite feature is one that didn’t even exist when I first started using Google Voice: Its integration with Gmail. You can route specific callers to specific phones, block certain callers, send calls to voicemail, and more. ![]() Google Voice use it for its phone call triaging features: You can set up a virtual number which rings one or more “real” phones that you specify. Google Voice I like my phone calls just like I like my email: I leave Messages open for iMessage conversations only, and rely on Adium for everything else. ![]() Adium’s tabbed interface makes quick work of handling many conversations.Īdium’s very customizable: I get a beep when a colleague initiates a conversation with me, and a blinking indicator in the Dock when unread messages stack up in existing chats. Adium combines AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo IM, Google Talk, Facebook, MSN, ICQ, and a bunch of other chatting services no one really uses anymore. I feel like the freeĪdium app is actually the more Mac-like of the two. In fact, this very story was assigned to me via instant message.Īpple’s Messages (née iChat), I just can’t. ![]() Though HipChat’s good for group chats, and passable for one-on-one conversations, I still rely on instant messages for a lot of direct correspondences with my coworkers and bosses. ![]() HipChat iOS app is very good too, though I occasionally need to force-quit the app and relaunch it to get it to show messages in a given chatroom. Though HipChat previously relied on an Adobe Air app, a beta Mac app is now available, and it’s miles better.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |